Barrick Gold (TSX:ABX), (NYSE:ABX), the world’s largest bullion miner by total output, announced Monday a major shakeup of its management team, which makes of Kelvin Dushnisky the sole president of the company, effective immediately.
Dushnisky previously held the title of co-president along with Jim Gowans, who will act as senior adviser to Chairman John Thornton until Gowans retires from Barrick at the end of the year, the firm said. Richard Williams, who was chief of staff, has become chief operating officer, reporting to the newly appointed president.
The changes are the latest in a string of management reshuffles at the Toronto-based company in recent years. In 2014, the miner eliminated the chief executive role and solidified Thornton’s role within the company. This happened shortly after former CEO Jamie Sokalsky left the company.
“As we work to accelerate Barrick’s return to the lean, decentralized model that drove the company’s early success, the time is right to put a structure in place that supports this vision,“ Thornton said in today’s statement. ”As president, Kelvin will ensure the entire company remains focused on our primary objective, maximizing free cash flow per share from a portfolio of high-quality gold assets in our core regions. As chief operating officer, Richard will drive organizational efficiencies, with a focus on enabling our mine managers to deliver on our business objectives.”
Earlier this month, Barrick cut its quarterly dividend and reported a net loss for the second quarter.
Both Dushnisky and Williams are now the main executives responsible of assuring the Barrick reaches its goal of cutting costs by $2 billion by the end of 2016.
4 Comments
FrustratedMiner
This company has become a joke among mining industry. It shouldn’t recognize itself as a Canadian company. Sad to see a company that once was unstoppable was destroyed by this management that knows absolutely nothing how mining works. Chairman was an investment banker in China, President is a lawyer and COO was an army major from UK. Is this supposed to be a joke? How are board of directors and shareholders not thinking that they are being trolled and Thornton will probably end up making $15mil this year, because he “transformed” this company and “cut costs”.
sad to see
The least talented always end up in charge, all the good people have options and choose to take them.
Jorge Daniel Taillant
These are not untalented people … they are thugs and very good at it. Barrick Gold has a shady past, a shady present, and will have a shady future. The company has always been run by financial thugs and that’s how they operate. These guys are financial operators, not miners. Their irresponsible environmental practices are testimony to what is really behind the culture in the company. Pascua Lama is a prime example of how not to do mining … their glacier impacts, their impacts to wetlands and their political leveraging, and even their social engineering to build up fake stakeholder communities to bring to shareholder meetings are they way they work outside the law on environmental controls. It’s indicative of who these guys really are. It’s no wonder they’re in the pits and I hope they stay there.
LAMB
LAWYERS & ACCOUNTANTS SHOULD NOT BE RUNNING A MINING COMPANY